Resources

Strategic alignment helps organizations stay focused and grow!

By Jim Weidmann,
Principal
Roundhouse Advisors, Inc.

When I joined a non profit as
its COO, with the understanding that this was a turn
around opportunity, my first instinct was to understand
the organization and identify where it was
hemorrhaging.This would allow me to stop the negative cash
flow and buy time to analyze the numbers, strategy and
personnel. As I revisited the vision, mission and
existing strategy, it became obvious that the structure
had been acted upon so many times with cost and
personnel reductions as well as failed initiatives that
nothing was effectively aligned behind the vision and
mission negatively impacting their results.

As I go into organizations today
to help them identify their critical leading performance
indicators from a strategic and tactical perspective, I
find the same problem of misalignment.In fact, almost
every time, the organization does not measure at least
50% of its critical leading
performance indicators and, therefore, has no one
responsible for their impact.

As a former AF Pilot I
controlled a $30M aircraft by information fed to me on a
dashboard that allowed me to sense and respond in real
time to a set of interactive variables that changed as
my flight conditions changed.It is no
different in leading organizations, leaders must make
constant adjustments, based on real data, or they will
drift off course and become reactive verses proactive in
directing their organization. The Power of
Strategic Alignment and Reporting allows an organization
to identify, align, report and present its critical
strategic and tactical performance indicators to achieve
unity of effort for quantifiable performance
improvement.
The Aberdeen Group’s research proved that aligned
organizations performed better in every measurable
financial standard than their non aligned counter parts
realizing over 20% increase in operating contribution
margins!

So if you are looking to drive your
organization toward “profitable” growth, consider
talking to a “professional business chiropractor” – an
alignment specialist. There are several steps that must
be taken to re-position the organization:

Establishment and agreement on
the “Main thing” the organization needs to
accomplish.In the
book Power of Alignment, George Labovitz and Victor
Rosansky identify the main thing as: The common and
unifying concept to which every unit can
contribute.Each department and team must be able to see a
direct relationship between what it does and this
overarching goal.The main thing
must be clear, easy to understand, consistent with the
strategy of the organization and actionable by every
group and individual.

Identification of strategic
and tactical organizational key performance indicators
(KPIs) -associated with the Main Thing, their goals
and their reporting processes: in every company there is a main objective a company is
trying to meet. KPIs are metrics that inform executive
teams about whether or not they are meeting their
projected goals. KPI’s vary based on the unique
mission of the organization.This is a
three step process.First you must
identify your “key” indicators that if acted upon will
directly impact your operations. The balance scorecard
elements, unique strategic initiatives, and industry
KPI’s also need to be considered.With the goal
being to identify 10-20 indicators that are mutually
exclusive and collectively exhaustive. Second, each
indicator needs a goal determined by past trends
and/or industry best in class performance.Third, how and
by whom the data will be captured and reported needs
to be determined.

Alignment of KPIs into
individual performance plans and job
descriptions.Now
that the what, how and whom has been established, the
performance indicators need to be incorporated into
individuals performance plans.This provides
for accountability and understanding by the employee
of how their efforts contribute to the main
thing.The responsibility and accountability is so
clear, that executives should be getting calls before
they every see a negative condition on the
dashboard.

Implementation of an Organizational
Dashboard to monitor and manage toward growth.The timely
reporting and presentation of the data is critical to
realizing the benefits of the quantifiable performance
improvements. The
objective is to get the right data to the right person
who can act on it, knowing that there are specific
steps that can be taken to correct each negative
condition.Some of the data will be reported daily, some
weekly and some monthly.

“Alignment is the Essence of
Management”

Fred Smith, Chairman of Federal Express.

Jim Weidmann

Jim has over 14 years
of executive experience serving in non profit leadership
whose success is measured in millions of dollars. He
focuses on maximizing the existing skills and talents of
an organization to drive critical thinking and execution
required for revenue growth and world class performance.
He has demonstrated abilities in leading start-up,
turnaround and new business development initiatives.
Most recently, Jim was COO for a national non profit
with over 2,500 volunteers helping to lead its
turnaround team returning it to profitability within one
year. With over 12 years at IBM and four years as an Air
Force Pilot and an international speaker and author, he
provides leadership, content, operations and strategy
expertise.

Jim is a former
co-captain as well as football coach for the U.S. Air
Force Academy. He holds a B.S. degree in Engineering
Mechanics from the Academy and an M.B.A. from Hardin
Simmons University with a concentration in
Marketing.